1. Introduction

At the UN Assembly General Debate of the 68th Session, 26th September 2013, Uruguay’s José Mujica, the “poorest President in The World”, said:

“We are proposing a life of waste and squandering which in reality is a regressive course of action against nature and humanity in the future. A civilization against simplicity, against sobriety, against all natural cycles, and even worse a civilization against freedom which means having free time to enjoy human relations: love, friendship, adventure, solidarity and family. Civilization against free time”…

…“The little man of our days, goes faithfully every day to his job, to his office, consuming, consuming, spending with plastic, with credit, with instalments, hoping for vacations and never enjoying true life, and when he dies, with his funeral service in instalments, he is replaced by another little man with the same mind-set”.

“Let us not get distracted tinkering with consequences, let us think about the real causes, in the civilization of waste and squandering that only wastes life. Let us focus on the fact that human life is a miracle, that there is nothing more valuable than life. And that our biological duty is above all to respect life, to boost it and understand that we are the species that it responsible for this”.

Mujica said things that make me think about Civilization: Poverty, Slavery, Unhappiness.

Could it be that civilization is responsible for human unhappiness? By this I refer not to the lack of opportunities for people to be happy but rather to social inequality, to the fact that even at the gates of the twenty-first century there are those who die from hunger, others murder with impunity, imposing their own brand of terror under one flag or another. I wish to speak of those who are not allowed to be as they would wish: free to be themselves. When I speak of unhappiness I am referring to a group of factors which have transformed us into outstanding members of a hypocritical society. It has been said that the basis of civilization is hypocrisy a detestable vice in personal relationships, but an indispensable one socially, however much we regret this sad reality. But why is it that hypocrisy is the basis of civilization? Could it be an integral part of civilization’s origins, and of those formalist studies of the primitive hunters?

2. The Journey-The Corpora

Let us undertake a journey of possible enlightenment with Marshall Sahlins and Jack Goody as our guides to discover the origins of hypocritical civilization, even though we suspect a markedly pessimistic outcome to our research. To paraphrase Gramsci: “Let us be wilful and let our will fight the healthy pessimism of understanding” 1 (Letter from Prison, 19 December 1929).

First of all, just as Ernst Cassirer in his “Essay of Man” (Yale University Press, New Haven 1944) “we needs basic structural categories for his philosophical description of civilization”2, we too need to establish some fundamental structural categories as a basis and follow that with a description of civilization, especially its origins. This leads us to the confirmation of the “perpetual fight between different forces in conflict” 3. (Ernst Cassirer, p. 111).

According to classical economics, Palaeolithic man was an expert in “technical incompetence” 4. When this is compounded by the absence of holidays and sufficient leisure to “create culture”, the hunter-forager of the Palaeolithic era does indeed appear a sorry specimen. Had we lived then, the outlook would have been totally discouraging. Nevertheless, anthropological economics refers us to studies at variance with those of the classical economists when speaking of the so-called “subsistence economy”. It is known, for example, that “the hunter employed the lowest thermodynamic levels; less energy per capita and per annum than any other method of production” 5 (Marshall Sahlins, p.13) – a surprising claim for many, but one I find quite possible. Public opinion, as Sahlins states, believes “an affluent society is one in which all the material needs of its members are easily satisfied.” 6 Later, however, he goes on to say that “affluence can be reached by two different paths. Needs can be “easily satisfied” either by producing a large amount or by wanting little” 7. (Marshall Sahlins p13) This I see as the heart of the matter. The trick to reaching the state closest to happiness is perhaps purely and simply not to want. Remember that “not to want is not to lack” 8. (Marshall Sahlins p.24) This is an easy road to affluence by simply lowering the level of minimum needs, hardly any effort is required to reach it. We might also ask ourselves why we should feel obliged to become affluent. Maybe there exists another kind of affluence better suited to the primitive hunter-forager.

“Destutt de Tracy remarked that in the poor nations people feel they have enough, while in the rich nations people are mostly poor” 9. (Quoted by M. Sahlins, p. 14). This observation still holds true: we need only consider some advanced or sophisticated capitalist country such as Japan. Curiously, until very recently 90% of the Japanese considered themselves comfortably-off middle class. Reading these statistics abroad, one might easily be led to believe that in Japan there are no social classes. There will, of course, be the pressure groups in whose interest it is to de-class Japanese society. Once in Japan, however, the reality is very different from official surveys. Here there are the rich and the not-so-rich, the poor and the not-so-poor. Were we to analyse the tax returns of each of the approximately 50 million members of the working population, we might receive a pleasant surprise. Although the Japanese taxation system was introduced by the United States of America and on paper is equitable, distributive and just, tax evasion methods have been developed like in others countries: only it is necessary read The Panama Papers.

In Japan it is rare to find owners of great mansions, but such as there are may well bear the names of famous families, linked by marriage and economic ties, recalling the former “Zaibatsu”, and/or clans of super-bureaucrats and/or politicians. But fear not, everything stays within the family. Thus, just as in other countries, capital looks after itself, becoming ever stronger, with the natural corollary of weakening the rest of the population. Yet unless we study Japanese society more closely, the semblance of harmony, of one happy family, takes in even the foreigners to an amazing degree.

To return to the differences between the fortunate and those less so, I would be interested to know what percentage of the population lives in houses of over 90 sq. m., a modest enough area. You could reply that 3 plus 6 tatami mats is all that is needed, to which I could answer that the human capacity for adaptation is great and that, if necessary, it does provide enough space for a couple or for a nuclear family to live in. But how many Japanese would like to have 90 sq. m at their disposal? Let them forget their shame at being sincere and show what they really long for. In this case recognizing the desirability of something is perhaps exposing oneself to wanting and feeling deprived. And of course, I am not referring to actually owning the house on its plot of land. I am talking only of a reasonable rent. The Japanese “salary man” is allowed to work, to save, but above of all else, to consume. Interest in overseas travel is gradually increasing, and travel agencies have struck lucky, charging prices bordering on madness. But there are other Japanese not granted these opportunities, such as purchasing a decent house to live in, buying certain products beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy, attending certain “Jyukus” or universities, and so on: there is a ceiling to the aspirations of many Japanese. Abe’s new consumption tax does not discriminate between those who buy a BMW and those buying a packet of “tofu”. They each pay 8% in addition of course, to other taxes. The “salary man” has access primarily to the range of home electrical appliances, audio-video cameras, Play Station 4 Jet Black 500GB/1TB, Smart Phones, small and medium-size cars and little else. “Each acquisition is at the same time a privation” 10 (Marshall Sahlins, p.16), which automatically produces frustration. The Japanese poor cannot be said to be starving: the concept of poverty differs from the traditional one. Here they are poor in comparison with the rich, who are used as a point of reference, and since these are few in number, Destutt de Tracy’s observation is accurate.

The origin of the traditional error of considering the hunter-forager incapable of exploiting the earth’s resources is seen by Sahlins as “the clearest Neolithic prejudice, an ideological appraisal (….) consistent with the historical determination to deprive him of the very earth” 11 (Marshall Sahlins, p. 17). Much ink has been wasted on making such ideological appraisals as this. Life without sacrifice, simply lived, is what the hunters would have wanted. They would not, I suspect, have understood much of scarcity and sacrifice. If we apply the word “scarcity” in the sense of “the relation between means and ends” 12 (Marshall Sahlins, p. 17), the hunters hunted in order to live, not vice versa. Their means, their bows and arrows, were their brand of technology, their ends, mere survival.

Lowie clearly states “the hunters must work far harder to survive than the farmers and shepherds 13 (1946, p. 13), an observation Marshall Sahlins does not agree with, since it is a further example of the continual comparisons with the Neolithic economies, intended to emphasise the economic inefficiency of the hunters. The latter have always been criticized, even from such surprising fronts as “contemporary European Marxist theory, which frequently approves of bourgeois economies as regards the poverty of primitive peoples” 14, (M. Sahlins, p.17) I, however, do not believe they were poor: merely different and with quite other goals. They certainly were not conservative, tied to the fruit of the land which denied adventure and risk-taking. Braindwood (1957, p. 122) speaks of how “a man who spends his whole life pursuing animals with the sole object of killing them for food, or gathering fruits in the forest, lives as if he himself were an animal” 15, (quoted by Marshall Sahlins, p. 17) to which I respond with the suggestion that he should think of those modern men in the Amazon Basin, who, while exceptional, do exist, spending their lives pursuing other men, solely to annihilate them or drive them out of their territories. Which really live as if they were animals?

It is by no means easy to define clearly the dividing-line between the savage and the primitive. Jack Goody writes “we start with the conviction that there are important differences between ourselves (variously defined) and the rest. Otherwise how come that they are under-developed (or developing) and we are developed (or overdeveloped)? Or to revert to the earlier classification, why are they primitive and we advanced?” 16 (J. Goody, p.3).

Though expressed in very general terms, the line of thought followed by Levy-Bruhl attracts my attention. At the beginning of the century, Levy-Bruhl wrote, “the primitive mentality, dominated by the rational, is a pre-logical mentality” 17 (J. Goody, p.4). In saying this he simply joins the great materialist current started by Thomas Huxley and sustained much later by Haeckerl, according to which, man must be considered an animal among animals, especially in the case of primitive man. Not long after, however, mindful of the undeniable “inventions” of the earliest man, Levy-Bruhl himself found it necessary to state, “there is no society, not even the lowest, which lacks some invention, some industrial or artistic process, some construction worthy of admiration” 18 (Primitive mentality, p.516 et seq.) And since primitive man could not have such inventions industries and arts had he not been logical, Levy-Bruhl ended by admitting his study was incomplete and that with further study his thesis might have changed, “I recognize that my study of the primitive mentality is somewhat incomplete, since I have omitted techniques and their history. When we have a detailed knowledge of the development of the different societies, we will have to correct the idea we have formed of the primitive mentality” 19, (Bulletin of the French Philosophical Soc., 1963, p.38) This is precisely what was to happen as a result of the numerous research studies undertaken by the foremost ethnologists, especially in recent years. Levy-Bruhl at least leaves a small door open on the reassessment of the primitive mentality as something at variance with the restricted, prejudiced view of the “prelogical mind”. I tend to think the hunter-forager “lived well”, as described by Sir George Grey (1841 Vol.2, p. 259-M.Sahlins, p. 20) “It is, however, impossible for a traveller or even for a native from other parts to judge whether a region can provide an abundance of food and I can only say that I have always found the greatest abundance in its hovels”20. He goes on to denounce “another source of ethnographic error: the anthropology of the hunters is for the most part an anachronistic study of ex-savages, an autopsy on the corpse of one society directed by members of another” 21 (Marshall Sahlins, p. 20). Here perhaps lies the cause of that miserable atmosphere drawn by many anthropologists in their depiction of the hunters. Who benefited from making the return of some peoples to the primitive state unattractive? Maybe all who pull the strings of culture, myth and religion, language, art and history, and last of all, science. How do they pull those strings, you ask at once. It is difficult but not impossible, by creating a negative Utopia. According to Ernst Cassirer “Utopia’s great mission consists in facilitating what is possible, as opposed to passively accepting the present state of affairs. This symbolic thought overcomes man’s natural inertia and endows him with a new faculty: that of constantly readjusting his human universe.” 22 (Ernest Cassirer, p.98). By negative Utopia I understand that constant readjustment of the universe, so that whilst Utopia is not an accurate description of the real world, change may bring about an approximation to it in so far as is possible. In fact, that negative Utopia did not exist at any time before the hunters, not in any place: “it was nowhere to be found, yet it has endured the test and shown its strength in the development of the modern world,” 23 (Ernst Cassirer, p.91).

3. The Analysis

The authors of this negative Utopia persisted in their determination to change the real state of affairs, existing before their involvement, into the desired possible state. “Thus, although the hunters “were” relatively free of pressing material needs”, the artefacts of the new society created a fictitious need for them. “…Everyone had what he needed or could make it … They experienced a material abundance “which” was at the disposition of whosoever chose to take it”…

“The Kungs have developed no means of permanent storage and have felt neither need nor desire to burden themselves with surplus nor to have duplicate tools. They borrow what they do not possess”.

“As a result they do not hoard and the accumulation of objects is not related to status.” 24 (Marshall, 1977, pp.43-44).

This passage makes one feel one is dealing with men who have “self-confidence” (Gusinde) and a “material abundance”. The fact that “access to natural resources is naturally direct” and “all are free to take them” leads them to dispense with modern technology, the refrigerator included. Why bother to amass things when nature’s pantry is large and no electricity is needed? Unlike the cultural canons of the present day, primitive man’s healthy custom was to “share everything”; “Add in the liberal customs of sharing, for which hunters are properly famous, and all the people can usually participate in the going prosperity, such as it is.” 25(M. Sahlins, p.10) Marshall Sahlins asked why they were content with so few possessions, living in affluence without abundance. They understood “it to be a “question of principles” as Gusinde says (1961, p. 2), and not a misfortune” 26 (M. Sahlins, p.24). The idea of their being unfortunate was instilled in them chiefly by people envious of their condition and with the clear goal of benefiting from their change to a more “civilized” one.

For Owen Lattimore “the true nomad is the poor one”. “Mobility and property are incompatible” 27 (M. Sahlins, p.24). How could those hunters have a sense of ownership, something they had to be taught, when for them “the greatest good”, according to Warner,” was freedom of movement?” Their economic peculiarity was their “lack of interest in the accumulation of material goods” 28 (M. Sahlins, p.25). It is not difficult to imagine what role a tool merchant or salesman of whatever one might fancy would have, when the hunter’s innate indifference was genuine and he lived in accordance with it. This is indeed an “anti-economic man”, one whom those with an ulterior motive for changing him might call “uncivilized”, since he does not respond to their stimuli. “Economic man is a bourgeois invention, as Marcel Mauss said…”The hunters did have materialist impulses, but they never made an institution of them” 29. (M. Sahlins, p.26).

It should be noted that those who followed the hunter did institutionalize their materialist impulses, to the point of staking out land and saying, “This is mine, and I intend to cultivate it”. It was Locke who said we owed the origin of private property to the first fool who claimed, “This land is mine”. It is like poetry to my ears when I read Gusinde’s comment on primitive men (1961, p.1): “Their material possessions were extremely limited, which made them carefree about their daily need, allowing them to enjoy life” 30 (Gusinde, 1961, p. 1, quoted by M. Sahlins, p.27). Is it not true that these goals are unattainable in later societies which long to be free and enjoy life.

Much can be learnt today from the amazing fact that the Yir-Yironts do not differentiate linguistically between “work” and “play” 31 (Sharp, 1958, p.6, quoted by M. Sahlins, p. 31), revealing their attitude to these activities. Perceiving work and play as one and the same is something we find unthinkable in modern society, whereas for them there was no dilemma. Nor did they wonder whether they were lazy, they simply were. They gave themselves up to an almost perfect state of harmony with nature. Almost, because had it been perfect, the intervention of civilization would not have been permitted, nor would it have been possible to interrupt the hunter’s harmony.

According to M. Sahlins (p.30) “the most obvious and immediate conclusion is that the population did not work a great deal”… “Four or five hours on average daily…they do not keep on working. They stop once they have obtained enough to satisfy their needs of the moment, a circumstance which leaves them a lot for free time”… “If one day they managed to amass a large amount, the next they would usually rest”…, 32 perhaps they have their own measure of what is enough, and when they reached that point they stopped” 33. (McArthur, 1960, p. 92, quoted by M. Sahlins, p.31). The hunter-forager’s power to decide his own rhythm of work is in itself enviable. Without taking into account everything mentioned above: to have generous free time, to work little to rest, etc., at the height of technological development it seems achieving a similar state to that of the hunters seems a utopian dream. Rousseau was right when he asserted, “Man is naturally idle” but after reading Sahlins I tend to think man is wise in his natural idleness; it is positively intelligent to treat idleness as an art of living in harmony with nature. What was this man like then? Let us assay a new definition: a person who enjoyed idleness in his wisdom, living in harmony with his environment. This is not, I realize, an original definition, but it gives me pleasure to see it in print; it makes me feel good; there is even something romantic about it.

Marshall Sahlins wrote (p.33) that “the fact that the inhabitants of Arnhem Land do not produce culture is not strictly due to lack of time, but rather to inactive hands.” 34 I personally do consider that they produce culture. Why? Simply because my idea of culture is closer to Jack Goody’s: “Culture, after all, is a series of communicative acts, and differences in the mode of communication are often as important as differences in the mode of production, for they involve developments in the storing, analysis, and creation of human knowledge, as well as the relationships between the individuals concerned.” 35 (Jack Goody, p. 37). The hunters had a different mode of producing culture in the relations between individuals. One of the most important events used to be gathering the fruit and the celebration of great banquets to foster human relations. Over these days they danced, they sang, they played rudimentary home-made instruments, creating their own kind of folklore, bringing them gratification and, above all, happiness. I challenge modern man to produce this kind of happiness, with minimum effort and, furthermore, with no financial outlay. Marshall Sahlins provides copious data (pp. 36-42) on how “figures relating to the bushmen show the hunting and gathering of one man was sufficient to maintain four or five people. For each adult worker this meant about two and a half days a week. A working day was about six hours, which explains why the Dobe working week was of some fifteen hours, or an average of two hours nine minutes a day” 36. “Lee concludes that the bush-men do not lead a deprived life on the verge of inanition as is commonly assumed” 37. (1969, p.73, quoted by M. Sahlins, p.37). If you showed these figures to the man-in-the-street, he might not believe them. And if you asked whether he would change places with a hunter (impossible thought it be), what would he reply? He would be unable to accept the idea of working only half the week and of thereby maintaining four or five people. What would he do with his free time? Would he allow the rest of the family to remain idle at home so long? Could he accustom himself to the healthy enjoyment of his leisure as the hunters did? Would it cause problems for the modern state not to provide enough recreational activities for its citizens? The development of culture and civilization has left us no opportunity to answer these questions. Perhaps this average man would not know how to “lead such an easy life” as Basedow describes referring to the hunters. “When all goes well, when food is provided for and water available, the aborigines make their life as easy as possible. They may even seem layabouts to the stranger.” 38 (1925, p.116, quoted by M. Sahlins, p.40).

The progress of the Neolithic revolution placed us at another more advanced stage of civilization (if I may describe it thus). “It is therefore interesting that the Hadza, who have learnt from life,” (which is perhaps what we should do, ignoring the dominant culture), “should reject the Neolithic revolution in order to preserve their leisure…” They refused to devote themselves to agriculture “claiming primarily that this would mean hard work.” 39 (Woodburn). In this they resemble the bushmen, who answer the Neolithic question with another: “why plant when there are so many mongo-mongo fruits in the world? “ 40 (Lee, 1968, p.33 quoted by M. Sahlins, p.41). An intelligent response, that of the hunters on the subject of agriculture: “It would mean hard work”, they say quite naturally without a trace of shame, embarrassment or shyness Even more common sense is shown by the question “why plant when there are so many fruits in the world? Sadly, the development of civilization has instilled in us the idea of accumulation as something strictly necessary, implementing this idea doubtless served to break the “hunters’ natural disposition” 41 (Guisinde, 1961, p.27, quoted by M. Sahlins, p.42) not to worry about the future.

4. Conclusion

It was agriculture that taught them the need for haste. “They were never in a hurry,” writes Biard, 1897, pp. 84-85, 42 (quoted by M. Sahlins, p.43) yet we today are its constant martyrs. Working in a hurry, preparing food and eating it in a hurry, rising in a hurry: hurry pervades our every activity. Even the pleasure of reading and music are conditioned by haste. But the fact of doing everything quickly does not necessarily mean doing it well and effectively, it is enough to observe our modern societies to confirm this. There is activity but there are still lazy ants who refuse to submit to total exploitation: people and goods move to and fro, there is visible productive cheerfulness, a kind of harmful passion, much closer to what Drs. George and Janet Weeler spoke of than at first sight would seem true: “Wherever we see an anthill our impression is one of enormous work activity, but there is no such thing. Rather, the number of ants is high and all look alike.” 43 (M. Sahlins, p.43). This observation gives rise to two conclusions: one is that not all societies renowned for their high number of working hours really work so hard. They may move a lot and look very alike, creating a false impression. The other, is that it is fortunate that there is still some refuge for the less industrious ants to be a little lazy, despite finding themselves in an advanced society.

If we turn the traditional formulas upside down, like M. Sahlins (p.50), “the amount of work increases with the evolution of culture and the amount of free time decreases” 44. This is clearly true, since the first “and fundamental condition of hunting and foraging” is that it “requires movement to maintain advantageous production” 45 (M. Sahlins, p.37). Yet though the amount of work has increased, according to M. Sahlins “between a third and half of mankind goes to bed hungry every day…Now, in the era of greatest technological strength, hunger is an institution… Hunger increases in proportion to the increase in the evolution of culture” 46 (M. Sahlins, p.51). We note with ever greater impotence how the abys is growing more marked. M. Sahlins states that “the most primitive population in the world had few possessions but was not poor. Poverty …is only the relation between means and ends; … Poverty is a social state. And as such it is an invitation of civilization. It has grown with civilization along with an invidious distraction between classes…” 47 (M. Sahlins, p.52). M. Sahlins’s acute perception in viewing poverty as the “invention of civilization” is not only true; it is being demonstrated even now among many peoples of the Global poorer South with complete impunity.

He reminds us that “the economic problem can easily be solved using Palaeolithic techniques. This means that only when culture approached the height of its material achievements, did it erect as altar to the Unattainable: Infinite Needs” 48 (Marshall Sahlins, p.53). In this I see what is responsible for the great hypocrisy of modern society. Why do they continually try and tempt us with “Infinite Needs”, thus creating permanent unhappiness? The responsibility for this belongs to a single factor, following Rousseau’s thinking in his “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men”: the misuse of the sciences, arts and technology have resulted in an unequal society, growing ever more hypocritical, in which the Quixote’s have no place, making way for Sancho Panza.